John McAfee, an eccentric millionaire, crypto enthusiast, and anti-virus expert, was recently detained in Spain on charges of U.S. tax evasion. He also faces charges arising from a series of questionable crypto promotions, from which he allegedly profited millions of dollars. Though he is currently in a Spanish prison, it did not stop him from sharing a few of his thoughts on recent developments in the crypto industry.
With regard to PayPal's recent announcement, McAfee said “PayPal's acceptance of cryptocurrency signals, I believe, a new wave of cryptocurrency acceptance worldwide. Governments around the world will have to get used to cryptocurrencies.”
In 2017, McAfee boldly forecast that Bitcoin would hit $1 million within three years, though he later took back his comment in July 2020. When asked whether his view of the asset class had changed in the months since, he responded affirmatively stating “Too many people are using crypto as a way to get rich quick rather than its original intent, which is for buying and selling transactions.”
“We will see very soon a new movement into using cryptocurrencies as transactions rather than as get rich quick schemes. This is why I developed the private $GHOST stablecoin.”
McAfee departed from the Ghost cryptocurrency asset in August — the result of disagreements with the team. Days later, he clarified that he remained part of the network's broader privacy project. McAfee has statedly sorted things out with the Ghost team since then, based on an Oct. 17 tweet. He now oversees work on the Ghost asset once again.
“My work with $GHOST revolves entirely around our development of the world's first private stablecoin,” McAfee explained. “Version one will be a wrapped DAI. Later we will have a new stable, private blockchain. Holders of $GHOST will share all transaction fee profits for the stablecoin.”
According to his correspondence, which was facilitated through his wife Mrs. Janice McAfee, he has not yet been transported to the U.S., and still resides in Barcelona. “I have not seen the full complaint or the charges against me, but I assume they are also looking into my crypto activities,” John said.
McAfee and his wife have posted a number of updates via their Twitter profiles following his arrest. John evaded the U.S. authorities for quite some time due to the tax charges against him.
UPDATE Oct. 27, 19:41 UTC: This article has been updated with added information.